Ardnandave

I’ve had my eye on Ardnandave Hill since we moved here. Looking at it through the kitchen window, looking all knobbly, awesome and covered in snow over the winter. I’ve been desperate to get up there. The snow has melted on most of the hills now and, as it’s my birthday today, I decided to take a last-minute day off and finally get up there.

The night before, I’d mapped out a route. It was pretty straightforward to begin with, following a long, boring tarmac road and then cutting off uphill through the woods. The bit I was unsure about was, at some point, I’d need to detour off the obvious track and go straight up the hill. When I got to that point, the banks at the side of the path were really steep, so I had no choice but to keep walking.

Just as I was thinking about changing the plan completely, I spotted an old ATV track heading up through the trees and decided to check it out. That turned out to be the right decision as it went straight up, out of the forest and onto open heather about halfway up the hill.

As we made our way up toward the top, some small birds (which I later found out were Meadow Pipits) kept appearing, I assume protecting their nests. If only they knew I wasn’t a threat. Behind us, Rudi’s first ever summit, Ben Ledi looked awesome and still had plenty of snow on top.

After a pretty breathy 40 minutes or so we got to the top where I could see Beinn Each and Stuc a’ Chroin to the east, Stob Binnein and Ben More to the North West and, to the North… our house! I had signal too, so I spoke to Kerry on the phone. She could see me through her binocluars!

Some pretty heavy bog between the west and east tops meant Rudi’s legs were so black, it looked like he was wearing tights. From the second top I picked up the path between Ben Ledi and Benvane and followed the fence posts over Bioran na Circe, the highest point of the day, before dropping to the bealach and descending alongside the pools and waterfalls of Stank Burn (a lot nicer than it sounds!).

Back home for a birthday whisky.